Re Steve K's [5189]: > If Marx were a neoclassical, then it could of > course be a qualitative concept. But since > qualitative issues form no part of his core > analysis (except when he reduces qualitative > differences to quantitative ones, as in the > reduction of skilled to unskilled labour--of > which more later), to become an issue in > Marx's political economy, use-value has to > somehow in some circumstances be quantitative. I strongly disagree with your premise that qualitative issues lie outside of Marx's analysis. Indeed, Marx's philosophy and method of abstraction embodies a tension and dialectic between quality and quantity. Rather than lying outside of his theory of capitalism, qualitative issues are at the very heart of that understanding. To miss this point is to confuse Marx with the political economists that he was critiquing. E.g. he critisized Ricardo for conflating exchange-value with value and thereby conceiving of value as merely quantity. By doing so, Ricardo was not able to comprehend how the value relationship is an expression of the social relations of production associated with capitalism. This internalization of quality and its dynamic tension with quantity into the subject matter is an expression of Marx's historical materialism. Yet, this same integration of quality and quantity was well understood by Hegel and Hegelians of various kinds. > Marx's special perspective on use-value arises > from its role in the circuit of capital, M-C-M. > Here he is quite emphatic that use-value > *MUST* be the explanation of the source of > surplus value. This can only occur if, in this > realm, use-value is quantitative. All that is required is, rather, that the *commodity- form* has both qualitative and quantitative dimensions. Use-value, in order words, need not be quantitative but value must come to be expressed quantitatively even though it incorporates a qualitative side (i.e. the "socially necessary" in SNLT). > Conceptualising use-value as purely qualitative > means it has no role in economics. Why? Political economy, at least Marx's and Marxist political economy, is not merely about quantity. *If the subject matter of economics is quantity alone then, indeed, it is merely an applied branch of mathamatics!* Unfortunately, many economists have come to view economics in precisely these terms but it stands in stark contrast both to Marxian theories and to heterodox theories generally. In solidarity, Jerry
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